The best referrals for a new travel advisor start with people who already trust you. Announce your business to a group you belong to. Set a published fee and a separate friends and family rate before anyone asks. Offer a small paid itinerary review as the first door in, and referrals follow from one or two levels out.
Emily Hegenberger spent almost 25 years raising her kids in Los Angeles. Then her family moved back to the Chicago North Shore town where she grew up. At first it felt like a step backward. Her kids were moving forward, and she was back where she started.
So she started a luxury travel business, and the step backward became her best source of clients. A high school classmate she was never close to now runs the local chamber of commerce. Her parents’ friends trusted her with big trips. Her old mommy-and-me group from California started sending referrals.
If you are a newer travel advisor wondering where your first clients will come from, look closer to home. They are the people already in your life, as long as you put the right systems around them.
Your First Travel Clients Are Already in Your Network
Plenty of newer advisors discount their first bookings from friends. Emily did too. She worried those clients were being nice and did not count.
She came to see it the other way around. Friends and family count more, because serving them well creates the ripple. According to Emily Hegenberger, founder of GCG Travel, the sweet spot sits one to two levels of referral out. Those clients have something in common with you, but they do not know you from way back. That means they treat you as the professional.
The research agrees. In Nielsen’s 2021 Trust in Advertising study, recommendations from people consumers know ranked as the most trusted channel, at 89% in the US. Those recommendations were also almost twice as likely to lead to action.
Announce to a group, not one person at a time
Emily’s first announcement went to a group text with her mommy-and-me friends. She told them she was starting a travel business and listed what she could plan. A group announcement works better than one-on-one conversations, because people see each other rally behind you. One-on-one, you end up over-explaining why you started.
Stop trying to win the travel conversation
At parties, Emily felt she had to prove she knew more about travel than whoever asked. It left her frustrated. The phrase that fixed it was “be interested, not interesting.”
You will never argue a confident DIY traveler out of booking her own trips over a glass of wine. So listen, ask good questions and add what you know. She is the one who remembers you when a friend needs help with Italy.
Set a Friends and Family Rate Before Anyone Asks
At TIQUE we say clear is kind, and that matters most with the people you love. Say “I’d love to help, we’ll figure it out,” and your friend has no idea what she owes you. So she feels like a burden every time she sends a question. People who feel uncomfortable working with you do not send referrals, even when the discomfort was nobody’s fault.
Emily’s worst-case scenario was a weak moment where she charged one friend and waived the fee for another. Then the two friends compare notes, and the friendship absorbs the awkwardness.
Her fix is a set series of steps from intake on. Every client agrees to what Emily charges for each service before work begins. By the time the invoice arrives, nothing surprises anyone. Her clients do not feel guilty for working with her, and she does not feel guilty for making a living.
Here is the shape of a friends and family offer that keeps things clean:
- Publish one standard planning fee on your website and in your How I Work guide.
- Keep a friends and family rate, and do not publish it.
- Say both numbers out loud: “This is what I normally charge. Because of our friendship, I’d love to offer you a one-time friends and family rate.”
- Extend the same courtesy to anyone they refer, and thank the friend who sent them.
- Put the agreed fee in writing at intake, before you plan anything.
Setting the number itself is its own job, and a previous blog post you can reference walks you through it.
When a friend does not know what she owes you, she feels like a burden, and burdened friends do not send referrals.
Offer a Paid Itinerary Review as Your Front Door
Not every friend needs a fully planned trip. Some have already built an itinerary with help from ChatGPT, and they want a second set of eyes. Emily charges a small fee to review those plans. It gives a friend a low-stakes way to see what an advisor catches.
An advisor catches a lot. Two of Emily’s friends came to her in the same week with Italy plans. One wanted to move a Florence day trip to a Monday. Most of Florence’s major museums close on Mondays, the Uffizi included. Move it to Sunday instead, and it may land on the first Sunday of the month. That is when Italy’s state museums open free, so she would spend her one Florence day in line.
Nobody learns that from a blog post the night before. That is what a review session catches. We have long recommended a paid pick-my-brain session before planning starts. An itinerary review covers the friend who already planned it herself.
One of those two friends was already working with another travel advisor, who was not an Italy specialist. Emily gave her notes without stepping on that advisor’s toes. A review is advice, not a takeover of someone else’s booking.
Look for a hotel takeover during the review
A review also shows you whether a friend booked a hotel where you hold a preferred partnership. If she did, ask her to forward the confirmation. Then email the hotel’s sales manager and copy your friend. Ask to attach your IATA number, your industry identifier, to the reservation.
If the hotel agrees, she gets the amenities from your preferred program, and nothing else about her booking changes. Non-refundable rates usually cannot be touched, but you can still ask. The same request can work on some cruise bookings, where it may add onboard credit. You improve her trip and may earn commission you did not plan for. She also has a reason to come back.
Emily is honest that this one is a harder sell, because friends do not always see the value right away. So explain what she gets in one sentence before you ask for the confirmation.
Use AI to Write Down How You Work
Every step above depends on knowing your own process well enough to explain it. Emily admits she did not know what an SOP (a standard operating procedure) was when she started. She rebuilt her whole process on a 45-minute walk with her dog, Bosco.
She talked her workflow out loud to a custom GPT, a version of ChatGPT set up with her own instructions. She asked it to map the process as a decision tree. One path covered a booking moving forward. Another covered a client who goes quiet. Then she asked it to find the holes.
By the time she got home, she had asked it for these outputs:
- A task list she could import into Asana, her project management tool
- Updated text for her How I Work guide
- A check that the task list and the guide matched
- A list of website changes so her site said the same thing
That night, she posted a short version of her How I Work guide on Instagram. She also exported it to a PDF for her itinerary builder.
This is the shift we want for every advisor. AI does more than rewrite an email. It can carry part of the mental load you haul around all day. Robin Bradley, TIQUE co-founder, uses Claude every Friday to interview her about the week ahead. Then it prioritizes her task list, so she starts at the top.
Talking works better than typing for this, because you think in a stream when you move. You catch the “oh, and this” details that typing filters out.
Build Your Client Experience SOP Inside Niche
Emily has a saying: it takes a village to raise a travel advisor. Her village includes advisor friends who text her their wins every day. It also includes Niche, TIQUE’s private membership community for travel advisors.
Inside Niche, a guided prompt walks you through creating your client experience SOP. Then it tailors every step of your process to your target audience, in your brand voice. Pro and Premium members get the training replay plus the tools. Essentials members get the tools and a PDF guide that walks through the process.
It is the same work Emily did on her walk with Bosco, with a framework to start from.
Get the Client Experience SOP Prompt in Niche
Join Niche and use the client experience SOP prompt to write down how you work, from intake to invoice. Choose Pro for the full training replay. You also get to ask other advisors how they priced their friends and family rate.
Join Niche and get the client experience SOP prompt
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get my first clients as a new travel advisor?
Start with the people who already trust you. Announce your business to a group you belong to, like a parents’ group text. Serve those first clients well, because referrals one or two steps out often become your best long-term clients.
Should a travel advisor charge friends and family?
Yes. Publish one standard planning fee and keep a separate friends and family rate you do not publish. Confirm the fee in writing at intake. Clear pricing keeps friends from feeling like a burden, which makes them more likely to refer you.
What is an itinerary review service?
An itinerary review is a paid session where a travel advisor checks a trip the client planned herself. The advisor flags problems like museum closures, timing conflicts or impractical routing. It gives a DIY traveler a low-commitment way to see what an advisor adds.
What should I do first if friends keep asking me for free travel help?
Write down your fees and your process before the next request comes in. Our free Launch Checklist covers the foundations of launching a travel business professionally.
Does TIQUE have a template for a client experience SOP?
Yes. Niche members get a guided prompt for building a client experience SOP. It tailors each step to their target audience in their brand voice. Pro and Premium members also get the training replay.
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